The Railways gave 21 per cent more time to track maintenance in November 2017 as compared to November 2016, the transport behemoth said today. Track maintenance time in November 2017 was recorded at around 45033 hours, 21.17 per cent higher than the 37165 hours logged over the same month last year.
Focusing on track renewal and maintenance, the Indian Railways will spend Rs 1,000 crore a month over the next six months to replace out-of-date tracks with new ones. The exercise, officials said, was aimed at reducing train derailments.

Railway minister Piyush Goyal has also raised the track renewal target for the current fiscal to 3,600km, an 80 per cent jump over the average 2,000km of tracks renewed by the railways every fiscal.

A ministry statement today also said the number of accidents in April-November had shown a decrease as compared to that in the corresponding period last year.
The number of consequential train derailments — accidents with loss of human life, injury or damage — has come down to 37 as compared to 67 in the corresponding period of the last financial year. There were five consequential train derailments in November, 2017, as compared to eight in November, 2016.

Consequential train accidents at level crossings have also come down in this period from 14 to 8. The total number of consequential train accidents fell from 85 to 49. “The reductions in level crossing accidents have been because of the Railways’ renewed focus on increasing the pace of elimination of unmanned level crossings,” the statement from the Railways said.

The people’s carrier has a track length of around 115,000km, making it the world’s largest rail network under a single management. The statement comes after the public transporter saw a slew of accidents late last month. Between November 24 and November 25, there were four train accidents in Uttar Pradesh and Odisha. Seven people were killed and at least 11 injured.